Close Your Eyes
by keyascribe
Summary: The moments when you see what you're losing are worse than the ones the moments when you don't. Posteye damage.


Disclaimer: Mine in no way, shape or form, although I did cry when the manga ended.

Close Your Eyes

He woke to dulled pain, dulled sound, dulled . . . well, everything. There was only one thing sharp and urgent in his mind, a memory that was unclear but throbbed – throbbed like his . . eye? – with urgency.

" . . .Kana," he said, but it was Shigure who was there, leaning over him with eyes full of concern but under the surface shuttered so tightly that Hatori felt something like despair snap deep inside him.

"She's safe," the dog said. "We got her out before anything else . . . happened."

Hatori moved his lips to frame the word "we", then remembered a foggy impression of Ayame, amid pain and Shigure's voice and Akito's screaming. Of course, the writer had been waiting outside the head of the house's quarters, just in case; and Ayame, much as he didn't usually associate with inner house workings, would have hovered nearby because he had been worried just as Shigure had.

And Hatori hadn't been worried. That had been his mistake. He had been so full of relief, of joy, of possibilities, that he had barely registered any of Shigure's gentle hints or Ayame's silent fear. Those had belonged to the reality of the cursed, and he had no longer felt cursed; he had been moved – transported – into a reality different from any he had known, a reality of light and spring. He had been looking through an eye of the saved and now that eye was gone. His remaining eye blinked painfully. Yes . . that had been what "happened". There had been . . . an accident. He had not been properly careful, not been properly considerate, and Akito had been hurt, had not understood or perhaps had understood too well.

"How's Akito?" he asked, and if something cracked in his voice, it must have been because his throat was hoarse.

Something did crack, briefly, in Shigure's expression, but his voice was composed when he answered, "Sedated; Kureno got to the emergency syringes before Akito could do too much _self_ –damage."

There was anger brimming in the writer's words, but Hatori didn't share it; he felt cold, removed, as if he had taken one step away from the rest of the world.

Shigure must have caught the tenor of his emotions, more from instinct than from any expression the writer could have made under all the gauze swathing his face. "It's the drugs," Shigure said, "don't push too much. You're tired and . .and disoriented."

Disoriented? There were so many other words filling up that slight hesitation as Shigure picked his description. Hatori fought down a laugh, which would not have been kind to the friend who had stopped things from being worse, who he trusted to have taken care of Kana, and who was sitting now with a spreading bruise under his eye, probably where Akito's struggling elbow had caught him. Hatori closed his own eye as a wave of dizziness swept over him and decided that disoriented might be an accurate choice after all.

"You should go back to sleep," Shigure said gently, moving to fuss with Hatori's blankets, probably so he wouldn't have to meet the doctor's eye – he was going to have to get used to thinking in the singular in that respect. In a lot of respects, actually; and once again he swallowed a harsh laugh that might have been closer to a sob.

He didn't want to sleep, although he ached and shapes swam groggily in front of him; that, at least, was indeed the drugs. If he slept, that meant when he woke up it would be over. Sleep was a dividing time; without sleep there could be no day after, right? Even right now, this was just a continuation, a stretching out of the last minutes before the end. If he didn't sleep then nothing would be official, something could still change, could still happen, could still be different -

Shigure had returned to his seat and was watching him; and the look in those dark eyes - the look and lack of look at the same time – disturbed him, worried him. It was the bleak, grim gaze of someone burning an image into his brain, something that would remain forever; and Hatori didn't want to be added to Shigure's motivations or chalked up on a tally board.

"I won't be a reason, Shigure," he said slowly. "I won't be your excuse."

The writer tilted his head, expression still bland, eyes still snarling. "Aaa, don't worry, Haa-san," he said flippantly, no amusement making its way into his voice, "I'm way past justifications by now."

And because that was true, Hatori didn't answer. "How's Ayame?" he asked instead, to change the subject and because his doctor's mind wouldn't let him rest until he had gone through the entire list. Akito, check. Ayame, check. Kana . . .

Kana.

Shigure flashed him a wry grin and a little bit of something else crept back into his eyes. "Aaya is down the hall and sedated. You would have been proud of him, Haa-san. I've gathered he came down upon the people of this hospital like a minor force of Nature; he had half of them quavering at his feet and the other half worshipping outside your room, before he finally realized he was covered in your blood, and passed out. Even then, he waited until I got there so he wouldn't risk falling on a nurse."

Hatori chuckled, weakly. Of course, Shigure would have had to stay behind to make certain Akito was controlled. He could remember stumbling as the writer supported him and practically scooped him into a car, but Shigure must have returned to Akito's chambers immediately afterward.

"Ayame drove me to the hospital?" But he remembered long cool fingers running through his hair and pale silver glinting through the waves of red. Ayame had been crying.

Shigure shook his head. "It was one of the House drivers. Kana . . wasn't safe to. She . . " he shook his head again, visibly rerouting some thought process. "Well, we'll worry about that later. She stayed in the front seat. We couldn't risk her getting too close and turning you into your animal form."

_And now she will never be too close again. _

Shigure wasn't saying it; would, if pressed, in fact probably say the opposite, but it hovered in the sterile air, nonetheless. No marriage. No happy ending. Nothing but -

"Don't think like that," Shigure said sharply, as always catching as much by intuition as observation. "Kana's here. You're here. There's time. We can get around Akito eventually. We'll figure something out."

By which he meant _he'd_ figure something out. Shigure was giving out too many promises; it was already catching up with him, how much he tried to take on, and one of these days . . . But he did believe it, that there was time, that things would change. And despite his chill, Hatori could still watch the conviction on his cousin's face and find space to believe it, too. Because Kana _was _still there, and she was his respite and his dawn and he would gladly give one eye, two eyes, _everything _to be with her.

"Do you hate Akito?"

Hatori almost flinched at the sudden twist in Shigure's voice, but it was never a matter of rage or love or hope for him, like it was for Shigure.

"No," he said honestly. "No." And Shigure gave a heavy sigh that might have been relief, or disappointment, or something too confused to name.

"Kana?" he asked again, after a minute, and this time Shigure answered.

"She's also asleep, medicated, down the hall." Shigure hesitated. "She – she was upset. She'll be better when she sees you."

There was something like doubt for the first time in the writer's voice, but Hatori couldn't quite catch it in time, because now the soft chill blackness of unconsciouness was swallowing him again, taking him back, and then he was once again awash in darkness.

He awoke and it was later, but Shigure was still there, sleeping with his dark bangs hiding most of his face. Ayame was with him – Hatori had a vague impression of the two men talking together quietly earlier – and was curled in a chair he had dragged next to the writer's, and leaning into Shigure's shoulder. The snake was dressed in someone's borrowed scrubs and looked pale and innocent as he shifted position and a curtain of white hair slid over his features.

In the stillness, they might have been just as they had been ten years ago, as if only Hatori had changed. But Ayame gave a low, sad sigh in his sleep and the selfish illusion fled; his cousins had felt as much weight from the years as he had. Maybe more, because for him, for a few months there had been no weight at all, only lightness and bliss.

And as if his thoughts, his longing, had summoned her, there she was, sliding into the room like she was already a dream. She looked too pale and there was something in her eyes that was not like her, something foreign that had been driven painfully into them. He knew what it was: it was him, the curse. He was hurting her, and even now he was too weak to stop.

"You're awake," she said, and there was something like happiness in her voice, although her eyes still held their breath, as if they were afraid something more would shatter.

"My roommates snore," he said, gesturing to his sleeping cousins, and she gave him a tentative smile that almost broke his heart with its sweetness.

"I wanted to come, come check on you. Most of the staff are so afraid of Ayame-san right now that they're just monitoring over the intercom, but I wanted to make sure . . ."

She trailed off and Hatori glanced at Ayame's pale form. He had always believed that the snake was the fragile one.

"What on earth did he say?" he asked, wondering tiredly if he wanted to know.

Her eyes dropped and this time his heart did break, a little, as his chance evaporated before him. "I – I don't remember." Her voice was choked. "I c-couldn't help. I couldn't do anything. When I saw you like that, I –"

"Don't worry," he said, and it sounded so weak and helpless that he might have been pleading. "It's behind us now." Which was a lie, and he wasn't as good as lying as Shigure was.

She reached out one hand and he could feel it trembling as she touched his face. "Your eye," she whispered. "Because of me – your eye –"

But she was the one who had taught him to see. "It's not because of you. It's . . .it's the way things are."

"But if –"

"It doesn't matter, compared to you," he told her earnestly and saw with a sudden swift hopelessness that she didn't believe him.

Her own eyes, those beautiful clear eyes, were spilling tears again. "I should go," she whispered.

"Don't go." _God, please don't go._

She gave him a watery smile through the tears and knelt by his hospital bed, pressing his hand against her wet cheek. But even though she stayed, she still went. And Hatori closed his eye and went to sleep.


End file.
